Follow up on protesters run down by police car in 517 rally in Taiwan

I blogged about two elderly protesters run down by a police car within the guarded area during the big rally on 17th May in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei Times reported a follow up of this incident. Following the incident and Mayor Hao’s apologies, the authority failed to answer crucial questions but blamed the two elderly protesters for jaywalking! The fact that they are made responsible for their own injuries would have a major implication on whether they can claim compensation from the government. The two police officers in the car each received a major demerit and two minor demerits while their supervisors each received a minor demerit.

The family members of these two elderly men and about 100 residents from Taoyuan staged a protest outside Taipei City Hall as they felt the punishment on the police officers were too light and another disciplinary hearing should take place.

Another good contrast will be that when Su An-sheng kicked former President Chen Shui-bian and elbowed former ambassador to Japan, Hsu, it took the prosecution over a month to investigate and prosecute and the prosecutor only requested a minimum of 4 months sentence.

It is quite obvious that under the Ma regime, the police and the authority treat those who support the Ma regime and those who don’t very differently.

Many people have seen the clip of Wang and Zhang and we all think we know what went down. You might want to know that it has been confirmed that the Judge reviewed the tape in the courtroom second and by second and determined that Wang did not touch Zhang in anyway before or when Zhang fell over. Unfortunately, no media picked up on this update.

Email Subscription

Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is NOT part of China. The majority of the population see themselves as Taiwanese, NOT Chinese. Taiwan is a democracy and therefore people there do not wish to be ruled by China, a dictatorship with poor human rights record and about 2,000 missiles aiming at Taiwan.